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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521478">young man built to fall</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepinstripes/pseuds/bluepinstripes'>bluepinstripes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, annabeth is so in love with him, but mostly comfort because i feel soft, let percy jackson cry, percy being emotional makes me emotional, this is a short drabble</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:07:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25521478</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluepinstripes/pseuds/bluepinstripes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting two wars back to back is hard, walking through Hell is harder, but the aftermath of it all may be the hardest. There are good days and bad days when it comes to healing, and unfortunately for Percy, today is a bad one. Luckily for him, though, they're still together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>120</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>young man built to fall</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A/N: I've been reading transatlanticism by nerdylizj over and over again (if you haven't read it and you're ready to feel like you're being stabbed repeatedly in the chest, give it a go), and the raw emotion I felt from her writing kind of kicked me into gear in writing this. I just want these two to heal together, ya know?</p><p>Title is from Mind Over Matter by Young the Giant.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The bottom bunk in cabin three is cramped and there is no space between them as she presses her lips to the back of his neck, his dark curls soft against her cheek. Her arms are wrapped around his waist, hands joined with his over his chest; she can feel his steady heartbeat, and if everything was okay, she might have felt at peace.</p><p>The cabin is dark, quiet except for the trickle of the saltwater fountain. His breathing is even, but she knows him well enough to know that it’s forced, and that there’s a reason why the air between them feels so heavy.</p><p>“Do you wanna talk about it?” She asks finally, softly like he’s something fragile that will shatter in her arms.</p><p>“No,” he whispers, and she almost misses it. She presses her forehead into the space between his shoulder blades and sighs.</p><p>Across camp, Piper is organizing campers to fix the sword arena. The Hephaestus kids are planning how to best fix the massive fissure in the center of the ring, and the Apollo cabin is patching up the kids who were unlucky enough to get in Percy’s way.</p><p>When she found him, he’d been submerged in the canoe lake, his eyes flat and unseeing. She hadn’t been there when he’d lost control, but word had travelled through camp like wildfire, and she’d come running.</p><p>All they’d had to do was look at each other and she knew, wading out into the water and gathering hi into her arms. He was soaking wet, for once, and his body was shaking. Distantly, she had thought of another time, a memory an ocean away, when he’d been the one to comfort her. They’d been so young then, had no idea what was coming. It made her heart hurt.</p><p>“We’re together,” she whispers, brought back to the present. Her lips ghost over the shell of his ear, and she feels him shiver. “We’re alive and we’re together.”</p><p>At this point, she knows exactly how to bring him out of a panic attack with minimum damage, and he can do the same for her. Laying here in the dark of the cabin now, she thinks how grateful she is to still have him beside her after all this time, after everything she’d been through. </p><p>“I love you, Seaweed Brain,” she continues. She knows he know this, knows it’s the same for him, knows that what they have is something permanent. He’s the one who didn’t leave, and she is so lucky, even though he’s not himself right now.</p><p>He doesn’t say anything in response, but she feels him pull her arms closer to his chest. This is a new thing for them; before Tartarus, before Gaea, Annabeth had been the physical one, and he’d been the one that was making her blush with the things he would say.</p><p>Tartarus had changed a lot. She was just glad that their relationship wasn’t one of them. </p><p>Suddenly, he shifts in her arms, pressing his forehead to hers as his eyes slide closed.</p><p>“I don’t think I’m ever gonna get better,” he admits, and she feels her heart break as his cheeks grow wet. “I feel like -- like I’m going to hurt someone, and I couldn’t -- I couldn’t stand it if you --”</p><p>“You’re spiraling,” she breaks in, forcing him to open his eyes and look at her. The green looks like shattered glass, even in the dark. </p><p>“Annabeth,” he starts again, his voice stronger. “If I ever -- if I ever hurt you, you have to promise me --”</p><p>“Percy --”</p><p>“Let me finish,” he says, and she falls silent. “If I ever hurt you, you have to leave me. Please Annabeth. I couldn’t stand it --”</p><p>“Hey,” she says softly, sensing that he’s getting worked up again. “Hey, Seaweed Brain, stop it, okay?”</p><p>They look at each other for a moment, and she wraps her arm around his neck to pull him impossibly closer.</p><p>“Even if something happens,” she says, meaning every word. “Even if, somehow, something happens. Maybe it’s me, maybe it’s you, I don’t know, but I’m not leaving you.”</p><p>“Annabeth.”</p><p>“Percy, you’ll always be my best friend,” she talks over him, because she needs him to get this, needs him to understand. “Even if -- even if one day we break up, we’re best friends first, okay? You’ve got me.”</p><p>He smiles, a real one like he used to, and the pain in Annabeth’s chest starts to lessen. </p><p>“I don’t deserve you,” he says earnestly, his lips falling against the corner of her mouth.</p><p>She shakes her head. “Don’t say that. I wish you could see yourself the way I do.”</p><p>He rolls his eyes, but his lips are turned up in the troublemaker smirk that had started her falling when they were kids. “You’re such a sap.”</p><p>She shrugs, laughing, and then she kisses him, her mind going blank like it usually does when he is involved.</p><p>They had a long way to go to being okay again, to being them again, but they would get there. They had all the time in the world now, gods be damned. They’d earned it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A/N: Reviews make my day! PLEASE come talk to me on Tumblr, same name, I'll love you forever.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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